Dystemporalia

In the previous step, Jack and Jill placed their support cards in their support rows. Now they are ready to begin the battle!

Round 1 : Determining Initiative

Anachronism is played in a series of five rounds. Each round consists of two turns, one turn for each player. During a player's turn, his or her warrior may take a number of actions equal to that warrior's speed rating (indicated by the number next to the wing icon on the warrior card). By making attacks against their opponent and using other card abilities, each player tries to reduce the other warrior's life rating to 0; each warrior's starting life is indicated by the number next to the heart icon.

To begin round 1, each player turns over his or her round 1 support card. Then they compare the numbers in the upper left-hand corner of their cards; these are called the initiative numbers. Jack's card, Thetis, has an initiative number of 3; Jill's card, Blossius of Cumae, has an initiative of 0. Normally, the higher number wins initiative and that warrior goes first.

The next step is to check to see whether either card has a persistent ability that will affect this round. Thetis's ability is a "once per game" ability: "Once per game, re-roll any one die or make an opponent re-roll any one die." Since Jack can only use this ability once per game, he gets to decide when to use it; since it affects die rolls, there's nothing for Jack to do with it right now. Jill's card, however, has a persistent ability: "If you are a metal warrior, resolve initiative from lowest to highest this challenge." The phrase "metal warrior" refers to the element icon in the upper right-hand corner of the warrior card. The gold icon in the upper right-hand corner of Spartacus's warrior card is the metal icon. Since Spartacus is a metal warrior, Jill's Blossius of Cumae card makes the warrior with lower initiative go first. Spartacus gets the first move!

	Jack (playing Achilles)
	Round 4	Round 3	Round 2	Round 1
	West
South					North
	East
	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4
	Jill (playing Spartacus)

 

After checking the initiative numbers, and before proceeding to Jill's turn, Jack and Jill must also do two other steps. First, they check to make sure their support cards are legal. Normally, you may not have more than one card of each type in play at once (although some cards' abilities can change this). Since Jack and Jill each have only one card in play, this rule isn't going to affect anyone this round. In fact, since Jack and Jill have one card of each type, they'll never have two cards of the same type, and we won't have to worry about card legality for the rest of this sample game. If one of the players did have an illegal card, he or she would have to discard it now.

At this point, the players also look to see whether either card has a Reveal ability. Reveal abilities have a dash and the word "Reveal" after the ability name, just before the colon. Neither of these cards has a Reveal ability; in fact, none of the cards in the Achilles vs. Spartacus starter deck have any Reveal abilities. If one of the cards did have a Reveal ability, the players would carry out the instructions of that ability now, before the first player takes his or her turn of this round.

Finally, the players must also look to see whether either card has an ability that occurs "at the start of the round" (the phrasing may vary slightly from card to card, but it will be clear enough that the ability must be resolved at the start or beginning of this particular round or of each round). Neither Jack's nor Jill's round 1 cards has any such ability, so Jill—the first player in this round—may proceed to take her turn.

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